installation 2020/2025
(in cooperation with Patricia Joao Reis)
In The Medusa vs the Odalisque installation, the artists reinterpret two classical figures of femininity to re-examine the relationships of gaze, power, and desire in the digital age. The Odalisque — sensual, passive, and objectified — is contrasted with Medusa, a mythical figure: repulsive, inhuman, embodying resistance and opacity.
Reis and Walentynowicz transform these figures into trans-species entities that haunt contemporary visual and political space. Their encounter becomes a gesture of refusal to submit to the male gaze and an attempt to reclaim agency. The work choreographs glances in which Medusa and the Odalisque cease to be opposites — becoming symbols of the complexity of female subjectivity and the power of imagination.
*** “The Medusa v. The Odalisque” – B.S. Latrodectus Mactans Productions. Uncredited cast; zone-plating laser holography by James O. Incadenza and Urquhart Ogilvie, Jr.; holographic fight choreography by Kenjiru Hirota courtesy of Sony Entertainment-Asia; 78 mm; 29 minutes; black and white; silent w/ audience-noises appropriated from network broadcast television. Mobile holograms of two visually lethal mythologic females duel with reflective surfaces onstage while a live crowd of spectators turn to stone. LIMITED CELLULOID RUN; PRIVATELY RE-RELEASED ON MAGNETIC VIDEO BY LATRODECTUS MACTANS PRODUCTIONS (David Foster Wallace, „Infinite Jest”)
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